Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, is facing mounting political pressure over his pursuit of allegations of child sexual abuse against the former Conservative home secretary Leon Brittan. Bob Neill, the Conservative chairman of the justice committee, has demanded the publication of a letter Watson wrote to the director of public prosecutions, Alison Saunders, in which the Labour MP called for the accusations to be reinvestigated.

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Neill has also called for Saunders’ subsequent correspondence with the police to be made public to gauge how much influence Watson’s interventions had in Scotland Yard’s decision to reopen the historical rape allegation. Watson claims Lord Brittan would have been interviewed by police even without his intervention.

Tom Watson should examine his conscience over the way he forced police to reopen an investigation into former Tory home secretary Lord Brittan, David Cameron has said. The remarks by the Prime Minister come as a number of Conservative MPs are set to demand on the floor of the Commons that Mr Watson makes a personal apology for his actions.

On Sunday Sir Nicholas Soames, told The Telegraph that he and other Tory MPs will ask a series of points of order in the Commons’ Chamber to put pressure on Mr Watson to apologise. He said Mr Watson “must now come and make his amends on the floor of the House of Commons by way of a personal statement apologising for what he has done and apologising most importantly to Lady Brittan and to Leon’s family for the monstrous lies and abuse that have been peddled about Lord Brittan. One has to question what were Tom Watson’s motives in all this. Why did he do it?”